Greelblatt on Macbeth

From Steven Greenblatt: Macbeth was done in 1606 in the wake of the reopening of the theatres after the plague. It’s written in the wake of two terrible events: the plague and terrorism. Shakespeare, in his whole career, very rarely represents in any sustained way, the plague. Even though he lived in its shadow his entire life. It kept coming back every few years, it took off gigantic numbers of people (⅕ of the population of Stratford died the year of his birth). Though characters constantly invoke the plague (“A plague on both your houses”), he doesn’t represent the plague, except in Romeo and Juliet in the plot. Macbeth is an exception. There is a passage that comes closest to what it must have felt like to be in the grip of the plague.

Macduff: How fares the world now?

Ross: Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell
Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.